The Poison People

With a childhood full of secrets, Matt only wants to blend in. But when his university friends start to succumb to a terrifying disease, he begins to realise – he's the one person who links them all. As the disease spreads across the country, society disintegrates into fear and violence. The authorities talk about terrorism, but Matt knows the truth, and it’s much, much worse. He goes on the run, joining others like him in their struggle to survive. But will it be at humanity’s expense?

“I said: hope it’s not catching.” The man looks at me askance. He’s not kidding. We live in troubled times. Danger these days can take many forms. He’ll have seen the headlines, heard the radio. He’ll be thinking: you never know quite who, or what, you might pick up these days.

“Nah,” I say. “Just the arse-end of a cold, nothing to worry about. But do you mind if I open the window?”

“What? I smell or something?”

Nothing personal, mate, you all do. Despite your Polo aftershave, your Lynxeffect, or maybe because of it, people always have that burning rubber smell to me. In truth, it’s not just rubber, but that’s a convenient catch-all for the jumble of perfumes and polymers, synthetic fibres and accumulated soot, which remind me your typical self-styled human is maybe not so human after all.

“Sorry,” I say. “Just a bit stuffy.”

“Go on then.”

As I’m reaching for the handle, the man says, “What happened to your wrist?”

The man is about to say something else when the rain surges against the windscreen. We brake in a blur of rear lights, slow to a halt.

I breathe in the cool air. The man pulls out his phone, sends a message.

At least it looks like he’s lost interest in me, which is a relief. What was it Magda said? “For a moment, I thought I might have to kill you.”

I can’t help but smile.

The rain rushes against the side of the truck, leaks in through the window. The man gestures for me to wind it back up again.

“Sorry, mate,” he says. “You’ll have to put up with my stink.”

But I know it’s not just in my interest. If you knew what I was, you’d want the window wide open, come rain or shine. The pair of us would sit here drenched, if you knew the odds. Not that you’d have picked me up in the first place. Friend—you would have, you should have, speeded up. Called the cops, alerted the military. They’d have had their helicopter gunships out in no time, bearing down on me, all guns blazing, chewing up the pavement as I fled from the forces of righteousness.

Because you never know who, or what, you might pick up these days.

2

Be aware then, be warned. This is how it begins: the signs, the symptoms.

Lying there like a wounded thing. Wheezing, fevered, shivery. I was thick with phlegm, my legs lead-heavy. Laid out, bowled over, I was a sick, sick, sick boy.

But of course, it could have been anything.

“Put it there,” said Summer. “Not there, there.” She had on her best Funk Me boob tube, low-slung jeans. She’d raided her mum’s makeup drawer again, with the opposite effect than intended: she looked about ten years old, although she was pushing thirteen.

“Drink this.” She lifted the warm mixture to my lips. It burned the roof of my mouth.

“What,” I gasped, “is that?”

“Honey, brandy, water,” said one of the wee ones.

“Pepper,” said another.

“Curry powder,” added a third.

“Curry?”

“It was in one of those Ayurvedic books,” said Summer. “You know, from India.” She shrugged. “Maybe I got the amounts wrong. Anyway, it said you’re to have plenty of liquid. And eat. Here, we made you boiled eggs.”

“You need some peace and quiet,” said Summer. She began to usher the others out. Just before she disappeared, she turned back to me. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother you.” I nodded, closed my eyes.

A glass was being laid beside my bed but I pretended to still be asleep. The rustle of the beanbag, the hiss as someone sat down.

“Vereesh,” she said. Not Summer. Ma.

She leant forward with grim-faced intent, the laughing eyes I’d become so accustomed to back to their hard slate-grey.

“They said they found you in the dip,” she said. “How on earth did you end up there?”

And I, too, despite that great stretch of time, was back to where we began. “Don’t know,” I said. This was no time for evasions, appeals for sympathy.

“Unconscious, they said. Had to carry you back. You can’t remember how you ended up there?” I shook my head. She looked exasperated. “Well what’s the last you can remember?” Her American accent pierced the BBC English she had perfected over the years.

“I’d been down the town,” I said. “Getting my stuff together. Got the bus back. I remember . . . ” I was straining now. “Taking the bags back into the room.” We both looked—there they still were, resting against my half-packed rucksack. “And then . . . ” I shook my head.

“Not the night before? This week? Come on, honey, someone must have stood you a pint down the Ku on Thursday.”

“Ma . . . ”

“Do you have stomach cramps?”

I shook my head.

“There’s been no blood when you go to the toilet? Palpitations? What are your symptoms?”

I explained.

“Sounds like some kind of . . . flu to me.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Vereesh, you’ve never been sick.”

“I’ve had colds.”

“No, you have not,” she said. “Not even when you were a baby. All that time we were in India, not so much as nappy rash. It actually began to worry me; I took you to a doctor. He looked at me like I was mad.” Her expression began to soften. “Maybe it’s a sign—now you’re going away. My little toad is all grown up.”

“Ma.”

“If you need me you’ll call?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“And you’ll remember our code?”

“Ma.”

“I know, I know. I’m just a crazy old bird . . . ” She smiled, leaned over, laid the back of her hand against my fevered brow.

“Hot,” she said. “Hot!”

3

I caught the coach from Sunderland Central.

Ma was there. Even Clive had made it.

“You’re sure you’re better,” said Ma.

“I’m sure,” I said.

The driver opened the trunk. I handed him my rucksack. “Take care,” said Ma. “Keep safe.”

“It’s only London, Ma,” I said, “not the Middle East.”

“Big city though, big man,” said Clive. “Watch yourself.”

“Here,” said Ma. She pressed something into my hand. The Swami, with his white bushy beard, his brown face grinning like he’d eaten all the pies, stared sublimely up at me amidst a nest of beads. She had given me her mala.

“Ma. I can’t take this.”

“I know you’ve . . . moved on,” she said, “but I thought now you were going away it would be good for you to have something familiar, from home . . .”

“Ma.”

“Please, Vereesh . . .” She smiled. “Sorry, I mean Matt.”

The bus started up. “I’d better get going.”

“Go on then,” she said. She closed my hand around the mala. She gave me a big, long hug. “Write,” she said.

“I’ll e-mail.”

The coach whisked along the A1. The statue of The Angel of the North, grand and lonely on its hill by the motorway, loomed above us as red as fire, as red as rust.

I pulled out the mala, made the Swami spin between my fingers.

“What’s that?” asked the girl across the aisle. She was from the estates—tracksuit bottoms and boob tube. Hair pulled back and—a flash of stainless steel between her lips—tongue stud.

“A mala,” I said.

“A what?”

I knew better than to explain. “Just a lucky charm,” I said.

“What do you want one of those for?”

“My mum gave it to me,” I said. “I’m off to university.”

“What you studying?”

I hesitated. “Theology.”

She snorted. “What you want to bother with that for? Are you a priest or something?”

“No,” I said, “I’m just interested is all. About the way humans have tried to make sense of stuff. But it’s almost the opposite of philosophy, which reduces everything to a kind of . . . nothingness. Religion . . . reaches for the stars, if you like.”

The girl seemed unimpressed. “If you’re not going to be a priest, then how are you going to get a job?”

I shrugged. I’d never really thought about that.

“I got into the Royal Free,” she said.

“Royal Free?”

“Aye.” She looked at me like I was thick. “The teaching hospital. Trainee nurse. They pay your fees and lodging and you get five grand a year.” She put on her headphones and picked up a copy of Glamour.

I turned around for a last look at the Angel but it was long gone.

4

LOST in London.

I’d reeled from the bus station, senses blaring, and by the time I’d got myself together again I had utterly no idea where I was or how I’d got there.

Rucksack heaving, I strode along the mansion streets, trying to look like I knew where I was going, put off from asking by the fuck-off expressions of the passers-by. I kept fiddling with my phone, but the message was still the same: there would be no Google Maps unless I could find a hotspot. My meagre data allowance was already used up.

“Big city, big man,” Clive had said. And now here I was, lost in its heart. Lost in its guts.

A main road, a high brick wall. Then: black railings, soldiers in red. I finally twigged, a gleeful grin smeared across my face. I sneezed.

“Bless you.”

“Ta.” I wiped my sticky hand down the side of my jeans.

“Where are you from, son?”

“Sunderland.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but I guessed he would never have heard of Hebdon-Le-Hole.

“Sun Der Land. Is that near Scot Land?”

“Aye,” I said. After all, he wasn’t far off. “It’s about seventy miles south of the Scottish border.”

I threw my rucksack on my bed. My room wasn’t much—I stretched my arms out and they could almost touch both walls—but at least it was all mine. Enough with sharing: for the first time since I was a nipper, I had a proper place to myself.

With a view, too. I looked down at the crowd gathered around the bus stop, in all their colours and cultures. Back home, me and the other residents of the commune, or “fucking hippies” to the locals, were about as colourful as it got. Not that anyone other than a local would ever have called me a hippy—I’d long since had my hair shorn to a close buzz, got into the skater thing—but I was a bit of a stoner, mind.

I took out my baccy, rolled myself a joint. Thin and tight—I didn’t know where my next stash would come from.

The cough caught on the first drag. It started light, a little stutter I couldn’t clear. I chanced another pull at the joint but now it came back tenfold, a real wheezing cough that bent me like a reed. I had to hang onto the desk as it shook through me, and when it had subsided that all too familiar hot-cold feverish feeling lingered.

So I wasn’t entirely better then, but I’d known this when I’d insisted that I was. After all, I wasn’t going to miss the start of uni, was I?

I sat down on the mattress and rested the joint on the windowsill. Dug down to the bottom of the bag and pulled out the mala, let the Swami swing pendulum-like between my fingers.

There was a knock at the door.

Shit. I looked around for somewhere to hide the joint. In a moment of madness, I thought about flicking it out of the window but instead pinched its smouldering tip and shoved it into the desk drawer. I stuffed the mala back into my bag and waved the smoke away.

“Aye?” No answer. I ushered the last blue-grey wisps outside and opened the door. A man stood there, smiling.

Daniel had just arrived from Ghana. If I thought I’d had it tough navigating the big city for the first time, Daniel’s phlegmatic account humbled me. The poor lad had never used escalators before, let alone rode on the Underground, yet he seemed remarkably unperturbed.

“Yah.” He grinned. “I must admit I waited a little bit to see how it was done, and when I finally stepped onto the stairs I held on tight. But then this man pushed me. I was standing on the wrong side! This city will take some getting used to . . . ”

“You’re not wrong there,” I said. “How about escaping this madhouse, going for a pint?”

“A pint?”

“Of beer, man, lager.”

He laughed, nodding vigorously. “Sounds like an excellent idea.”

5

I may have had my own room, but even back home it was quieter—we kids had the barn to ourselves and curtained-off partitions gave us older ones a bit of privacy. Of course, they didn’t block out all the sound, but having grown up together, and having had to watch out for each other a fair amount too, I suppose we all appreciated keeping it pretty chilled.

Not so my new housemates. For a lot of them it was their first time away from mum and dad and they went for it big time. So it was with a wee bit of a jaded eye I viewed the high jinks of those early days, though I was careful not to appear too cynical or too much of an arse.

Daniel, on the other hand, was not up to speed on his group psychology. Or maybe he just preferred the quiet life.

I’d encounter a bloodshot Ghanaian in the common room the next morning.

“I hardly got a moment’s sleep,” he’d say. “How can they stay up so late? Don’t they have lectures to go to?”

I’d sympathise, say it would cool down sooner or later, although to be honest I didn’t mind that much. Truth was, I had my own little thing going.

We’d clocked each other by our tribal markings (well, t-shirts) and an appreciation of the weed, begun to venture out together, take in some gigs, check out the skating action along the South Bank. Stay up in my room until all hours smoking and talking shit.

“And this guy, he wakes up and, like, he’s changed into this giant kinda bug,” said Gray, short for Graham.

“Sheeet,” said Cal, a Canadian. “That must have been some kind of trip!”

“No,” said Gray earnestly. “It was before they’d discovered acid. It’s from the 1920s, by some Russian.”

“Czech,” said Jane, who was doing lit. “Franz Kafka. The Metamorphosis. Jew, died in a concentration camp.” She screwed up her nose. “Or was that Freud?”

“Ain’t there that other book, about bug drug people?” said Cal. “The Naked Lunch, Burroughs. Now that was about acid, but in the Fifties. Made into a film. Fucking weird man. There was some English guy too, back in the old days. Some writer—loved the stuff so much he took it when he was dying.”

“We should get some,” said Jane. “Do you think you could get some, Vereesh?”

I took a toke, shrugged. My sannyas name still sounded funny in her posh accent. Funny she was using it at all, in fact. But there it was on my certificates, registration forms, hall register, and although I’d introduced myself to my new friends as “Matt”, as soon as Jane saw it she took to using it because “Matt’s so boring; I know loads of Matts but only one Vereesh”.

I kind of resented her assumption that I was the obvious one to score the acid though.

A door slammed in the corridor. There was shouting.

“ . . . cannot stand this any longer . . . like children . . . ”

“Sounds like your mate,” said Gray.

Through the thin partition we could hear squeals of protest from the clubby chicks, gruff monosyllables from the lads. Daniel had picked a bad night—Thursday. No one went in on Friday mornings, except would-be accountants from developing countries like Daniel.

There was a crash and the tinny dance beat we had grown accustomed to stopped. I winced. Now the shouting was coming from both sides. There was a thud, the scrape of furniture, then silence.

Bugger. I began to pull myself up, half hoping that the others would do the same, but no such luck—they stayed slumped, avoiding my gaze.

I opened the door.

After the initial commotion, everything now seemed eerily subdued. The only light was coming from the kitchen at the end of the corridor, where I could hear muffled, panicked whispers. I approached it with some difficulty, bouncing off one wall then another, stoned out of my socks. Was I actually wearing socks? I looked down.

No.

This was not good, not good at all. I was definitely in no state to mediate between my fired-up friend and coke-fuelled clubbers.

But then I was at the doorway. I blinked in the glare, the strip lights bleaching the scene like a budget horror. There were the girls—paper white, charcoal eyed, lipstick-smeared, all clubbed out. The boys were standing behind them, pumped up, their shirts still clinging with sweat.

Daniel was on the floor, propped against the fridge, his head bent back, a hand covering his nose. Bloody spots splattered his white t-shirt. I crouched beside him.

“Danny,” I said, “are you alright?” He opened his eyes, looked blankly back. He didn’t seem to recognise me. “Where does it hurt?” He took his hand away from his nose, a bloody mess. It was then I felt the dampness through my jeans and looked down. I was kneeling in a raspberry red pool.

“Jesus,” I said, “this doesn’t look good. We ought to get you to casualty.”

“He started it,” one of the girls piped up. I looked at the group again. They seemed sobered by the violence, or at least afraid of getting in the shit.

I went over to the sink and grabbed a couple of towels from the dispenser. I handed them to Daniel. He dabbed listlessly at his face.

“No,” said one of the girls. “What I mean is, he only hit him on the nose, once, didn’t he? Then he sat down, didn’t you? He’s alright, aren’t you … ?” She didn’t know his name. “You’re alright, aren’t you?”

“Daniel?” He looked me in the eye for the first time. Covering his nose with the towels, he began to get up. The boys and girls drew back. But Daniel was no danger to them. He was no danger to anybody. He rose, surprisingly steadily, and made for his room. It was only as he reached out for the door knob I noticed his hand was trembling.

“You’re sure you’re alright?”

But he didn’t seem to hear. He went inside and closed the door behind him.

6

The night made a mirror of the carriage window. The creaking first-class cabin, the comings and goings of the char wallahs, the sweetmeat salesmen, bewhiskered ticket collectors—they all played their part in our drama. The fat businessman, his well-fed wife and their chubby offspring who pressed me into the corner and no amount of elbowing would shift; the straight-backed Sikh army officer who acted out heroic deeds in my imaginings; the American missionaries who unsettled Ma the most with their friendly inquisition.

“You’re from the West Coast?”

“California,” said Ma. “San Bernardino, originally.”

“And you’ve been in the country long?”

“A few . . . weeks.”

I frowned. I thought it had been longer than that, but then, maybe not—I wasn’t so good with time. Christmas still seemed months away, that much I knew, even though we were already in December.

“It’s a glorious land, isn’t it, so full of colour,” said the nice white-haired lady. “Are you hungry? We brought some fruit.”

I held out both hands.

“How old are you, son?” asked the nice white-haired gentleman.

“Four and three quarters,” I said.

“Well, let’s cut this apple into four slices—it’s alright, isn’t it, ma’am?” Ma gave a strained smile. “One for every year . . . how about you, Tonto?”

I giggled.

“I’m not Tonto, I’m Matthew.”

“Matthew. That’s a nice name. Do you know who Matthew was?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you, but Matthew was a disciple of Jesus. Do you know who Jesus is?”

“The Swami?”

“The Swami? Who’s the Swami?”

“Matthew, honey,” said Ma, getting up, “it’s time to go.”

“Go?”

“To the bathroom, honey, come on, take my hand.”

“But I don’t want to go.”

“You need to wash your hands before you eat, remember what I’ve been teaching you? Off we trot.”

She led me along the corridor and into the bathroom. First class or not, it smelt of poo. She took my hands and washed them in the warm, rust-coloured water, crouched down and wiped them on a fluffy white towel. Stopped. Held my hands hard. Hard like her face.

“Remember what I said, Matthew?”

I looked for clues in her expression. All I knew was it scared me.

“No . . . ”

“Remember the special thing we talked about?”

“Ma, you’re hurting . . . ” But she didn’t let off.

“Remember what I told you, Matthew. It’s very important. About talking to strangers, about talking about the Swami. We don’t do that, do we, remember?”

“No, Ma.” I began to cry. “No. Please, it hurts.”

“What do you remember?”

“Ma . . . not to talk. Not to talk about the Swami.”

“You’ll remember now? And not say to people? Like those in the carriage?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She let go and pulled me to her. “Come here, little toad, come here.” I was back against the softness of her breast, safe in the forest of her hair. “I’m sorry, little toad, I’m so sorry. But you’ve got to remember . . . ”

I pulled the sheets back, gasping. I was lying there in the dark, slick with sweat, my heart racing. I fumbled for the bedside lamp, found the switch, pushed back the night.

I propped myself up, gulped down some tepid water. Christ.

I waited for my breathing to slow, for the reality of my gloomy cubicle to overwhelm the images imprinted upon my retinas. Slowly they faded; the solid, temporal dimension asserted itself. The past had passed. I was back in London, England, in the here, the now. The Rizla papers and spilt tobacco on my desk. My jeans hanging over the back of the chair, their knees dark with Daniel’s blood.

I wheeled my feet off the bed and onto firm ground. Rose unsteadily, testing the heat of my forehead with the back of my hand. Burning. I was burning up. Oh Christ.

The sheets were soaked right through.

Suddenly all my strength seemed to leave me. I sank to my knees, held on to the edge of the bed to keep myself from succumbing to unconsciousness.

Tried to keep my eyes open.

I concentrated on the sheets, glistening now, I noticed. Rivulets were beginning to run between the creases—rippling, they were. I leaned closer, watched the water run, the beautiful swirling, snake-like shapes it made.

My solid twenty-first century world didn’t seem so solid after all. I lurched upright, but the world was still wobbling.

This was not good.

*

“Mate.”

“Is it drugs?”

“Dunno. Mate?”

I was being rocked. Harder. I opened my eyes.

“He’s awake. What’s your name?”

“Matt. Vereesh. Can’t say.”

“He doesn’t know his name,” said the woman cop.

“You alright, mate?” said the man. “You with us? In the land of the living?” Lights. Blue, white. I realised now: a police car.

“And where do you think you’re going?” asked the cop, a smile beginning to play at the corners of his mouth.

“Where?” I was trying not to go anywhere, concentrating on clinging on. Staying conscious was enough for me.

“Cos I don’t think you want to be going anywhere, dressed like that, Matt, do you?”

I looked down. I was naked except for my boxer shorts. “I’m cold,” I said.

“I’m not surprised,” said the cop. “Where do you live?”

I looked around. Realised. “There,” I said. I pointed across the road.

They were alright, the police. They walked me back to the reception, saw me into the lift. I went back to my cubicle, sat on the end of the bed, shivering. I wrapped the duvet around myself, but it wouldn’t seem to stop. I slumped into the corner of the room. My teeth, now . . . I tried to stop them . . . My teeth were rattling as if I was hooked up to the mains, but I knew, I knew, I knew this was not electricity.

Just try. To hang on.

*

Awake. My first reaction: relief. I was still there, in the corner of the cubicle, lying on my side. The shaking had subsided. I checked my temperature. I seemed to have cooled down.

I remembered the fever, the dreams, the double-bluff . . . what was real? Unreal? The bus stop came back to me with a shock. Surely that was just a dream?

I eased myself off the floor, pressed my palms to the bed. Well, that much at least was true—it was definitely damp. I examined the soles of my feet. They were black, pocked with grit.

I went to the window, pulled up the blind. It was still dark, but London rumbled on. A bus drew up at the empty stop, a dark figure stumbled out. Cars, cabs, motorbikes weaved around each other. An ambulance zoomed by, its siren muted but blue lights flashing.

And beyond all this, there I was, staring back out of the darkness.

7

I was lying on the hard, scratchy carpet, the duvet covering me like a corpse, when I heard Daniel leave for college.

I tried to get back to sleep, but it was no good. I crawled out from beneath the duvet and surveyed the crumpled scene. Memories of the long, lonely night came back to me, unsettling and unreal in the morning light. I tested the bed: drier, but there were still traces of damp. And the dirt on my soles.

“We’ll call it sleepwalking, shall we?” The policeman’s wry smile as we sat in the backseat of the squad car, the woman writing out the report.

“Poor love, first time away from home?” She handed it to me to sign. “You just take it easy, alright?”

And there was the receipt, crumpled on the desk. I shuddered. First the dip. They found me, they said, nestled half naked in the woods, wreathed with leaves. Now this. I fought a flare of panic.

I couldn’t be having this, I thought, I just couldn’t. London wasn’t like home, surrounded by acres of woodland. There was fucking traffic here. I could get killed.

Cool, I thought, just be cool. Alright, so it was a bit fucking weird but . . . look: maybe it was just the weed. Some dodgy super skunk or whatnot. In any case, it wasn’t so bad this time. I mean, I wasn’t all sick and fluey, knackered like before, laid low. I was just a wee bit . . . light-headed, euphoric even, in a weird kind of way. Actually, BURSTING with energy.

Fuck it. So I probably just overdid the whacky. And even if this flu, this bug, this psycho-flu-bug wasn’t properly out of my system just yet, it was certainly on the way. I would be alright.

I coughed, cleared my throat. “Fuck it,” I said out loud. “Let’s clean this place up, get a bit of order.” I jerked myself upright, got onto my feet, but had to sit back down again as the world spun around me. I waited until it had stopped and took some deep breaths before trying again, this time taking it more slowly.

That was better. I opened the window, stripped the sheets. When the room was back in shape, I took a long shower.

Stepping out, I felt fine. Better than fine: great. I could feel the energy surge through me. Heavens, I thought, I might even go to uni.

AUTHOR Q&A

Alex was raised in London and began his career as a journalist before working in international aid and public health.

Q.Where did the idea for this book come from?

A.

A passage from the case of Typhoid Mary: "As Mary lunged at me with the long kitchen fork, I stepped back, recoiled on the policeman and so confused matters that, by the time we got through the door, Mary had disappeared. “Disappear” is too matter-of-fact a word. She had completely vanished."

Q.Where can readers find out more about you?

A.

You can follow me on my Facebook page, Alex Makepeace. Or at alexmakepeace.com

Q.What draws you to this genre?

A.

You can experiment with the world around you, expanding its boundaries as far as your curiosity will carry you. I love the idea of being able to share my journey with other curious minds.

Ava is a fallen star, the adopted daughter of a dragon who prefers wine to hoarded gold. Every night, though it is forbidden, she visits her crash site on the outskirts of her father's vineyard, trying to understand her place in the multiverse.
When her midnight escapades attract the attention of star hunters, Ava is captured and her father is condemned to death. While imprisoned, Ava meets Oberon, a tattooed desert boy with supernatural gifts, and sets out on a life-changing adventure.

Read more

Star Kin

by Brian Toups

The girl who fell from the sky

17days left

Hot

Teen & Young Adult

Astrin is disoriented when she wakes up on Earth: she’s spent six years ruling and fighting nomadic armies on another planet, Rojdegh. As she struggles to return to her wintry home and the man she loves, she must reconcile old relationships with new beliefs and restrain her killing instinct before she’s locked away. How can she know what’s real when her past exists only in her memory? How can she trust others when she can’t trust herself? And what will she sacrifice for who she desires to be?

Read more

Strands of Truth

by K.E. Timere

A warrior queen’s worst enemy is her mind.

28days left

Hot

Literature & Fiction

When returning-soldier Michael comes in front of the judge for hacking a Government Minister’s bank, he braces himself for prison. Surprisingly, Michael finds himself in charge of a group of offenders and sent to a remote spot in the mountains of Spain to teach survival skills as part of their rehab. But Michael knows nothing of survival skills. His shining record in the SAS “Escape and Evasion” course was more a testament to his computer skills than his ability to catch and barbecue wildlife.

Read more

Camp Scoundrel

by David Luddington

Doing what it takes to survive paradise

17days left

Hot

Romance

In the far future, young human Antaska accepts a job to go into space with a gigantic alien adolescent. She brings her telepathic cat along.
Mischievous but evil part-reptile humanoids team up with Antaska’s nemesis--a genetically altered male--to harass her to the ends of the universe, but her unexpected alien abduction foils their scheme.
What happens next is a science fiction dark comedy romance that explores the many faces of love, hate, and pet ownership.

Read more

hypnoSnatch

by Trisha McNary

Is it love, or is it alien abduction?

1day left

Hot

Science Fiction & Fantasy

It was Tyla's first day at Elantoth Fortress. Tina Ann stayed with her until the danger had passed. One is a pureblood gnome, the other a deformed variant, but Tyla's gift for drawing powers from gemstones, and Tina Ann's ability to detect dark powers make them an ideal team. Whether in the fortress, the Tree Home Community, or the Outcast District, adventures await. They couldn't be less alike. But nothing will keep them apart. Nothing short of the secret danger that threatens the gnome world..

Read more

Wards and Wonders

by Kay L. Ling

They met the day the moat monsters attacked.

1day left

Hot

Literature & Fiction

Luck lands in Hannah Hudson’s lap changing her life forever. With her heart filled with hope, she leaves her tiny desert apartment and heads for a ranch in Colorado. Shortly after arriving, a tragic accident occurs—or was it murder? She’s all alone, and the unfamiliar seclusion takes her breath away. Rancher, Trace McAllister, lends a hand and helps her learn the ropes around the ranch and in the bedroom. But evil lurks, and they must fight for their lives.

Read more

Colorado Takedown

by Cricket Rohman

A guy, a gal, and the trouble with money.

15days left

Hot

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Jack Miner is released early from prison to solve the murder of a Russian mine manager. Detectives choose him, because of former dealings with the Russian mafia. An Oligarch is the prime suspect and Jack changes his identity to avoid danger. He penetrates the billionaire’s business web and enters a murky underworld of diamond smuggling and mining. Jack’s trail leads to romance and the discovery of gems on a volcanic island. An extraordinary mining boom follows, with totally unexpected twists.

Read more

Jack of Diamonds

by Neil Behrmann

Gem smugglers & Russian mafia clash and kill

1day left

Hot

Romance

Thomas St. James was not meant to be an earl. He is an airman, an officer. But after his cousin’s death, he must assume the Thorndale title and take charge of the estate and ward that accompany it. He plans to stay just long enough to hand over his obligations…until he learns about the devastation that his cousin’s greed is wreaking. To set things right, he needs the help of the one person he’d like to forget—the indomitable Captain Kate Delaney. Even then, the odds are long, and time is short.

Read more

Dauntless

by LB Clark

Will he lose everything he never wanted?

1day left

Hot

Literature & Fiction

In an era of cultural extremes, framed in two of the world’s influential power hubs, New York City and Washington, D.C., Ellie Sheafer, sole heir to the massive Sheafer Media empire, absorbs effects caused by Byzantine events; laced with interpersonal struggles. Thrust into a maze of increasingly complex situations, confused by nebulous clues and illogical links, Ellie faces significant diverse perspectives—socioeconomic disparity, conflicted political agendas, and unchecked self-interest.

Read more

Broken Choices - A Novel

by VA Barnhill

Choosing poorly carries incalculable costs.

15days left

Hot

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

The target: One alpha empath.
Collateral damage: Thousands of lives.
Alpha empaths are dying, executed by an assassin who leaves no psychic trace. Zara must hunt down the killer before Danyael, the last alpha, is murdered, but nothing is easy in a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution. Iconic killers are cloned to exact the vengeance they could not find in life, and the sins of the past transcend centuries to coalesce into a threat no one can contain. It will begin with Danyael's death.

Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It's a
place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and
receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights
reversions and featured Amazon marketing.